GILLIAN BRADFORD: Well, Mr Downer, we'll get to Fiji in a minute, but there have been a flood of leaks ahead of the Cole Commission's report being tabled today.

Does what you have seen so far leave you with a clear conscience over how you and your department acted?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well look, I answered questions before the Cole Commission, as did Mr Vaile and the Prime Minister. I, of course, have answered dozens and dozens of questions in the Parliament about this issue.

We've been entirely consistent, all of us, in what we've said, and we've stood by what we've said. And you'll of course see that put to the test with the publication of the Cole Commission report today.

But, as the Prime Minister said, the terms of reference do give the Commissioner, or did give the Commissioner, the opportunity to establish whether the Government had been working with AWB Limited, whether as Mr Beazley said, we were "corrupt".

Mr Beazley and Mr Rudd have been saying that we have been lying. Their credibility will be put to the test today as well when the report is published.

GILLIAN BRADFORD: I'm sure independently of the Cole Commission, you've been thinking long and hard about how you and your department acted in terms of good governance.

Would you see any reason that you would make findings about the ways things are done within your department?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well look, you'll be able to read the report in the fullness in time, but in an overall sense, the Oil for Food program is not a type of program the United Nations is likely to repeat, I suspect.

It was an extremely difficult, complex program to administer, and bearing in mind, I'm not sure if my figures are entirely right, but around 2,500 companies from 66 different countries, many of them extremely well-known companies, were found to have been involved in some kind of a kickbacks regime by the Volcker Inquiry, illustrates the problems with the overall architecture of the scheme.

We are, by the way, the only country that has set up a transparent inquiry into the whole of this process, and I think it will reflect well on Australia that like 66 or 65 other countries, we had companies that were apparently involved in the kickbacks scheme. We did something about it.

GILLIAN BRADFORD: Mr Downer, onto Fiji - New Zealand is so concerned about the threat of a military coup, it's moved some of its high commission staff out of its Suva office.

Is Australia planning to follow suit?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: In relation to the New Zealanders, that action that the New Zealanders had taken concerns a specific threat against New Zealand and New Zealanders, not Australians.

But in a broader sense, though, I stand by what I said last week and that is that I am very concerned that Commodore Bainimarama, the head of the military, is going to undertake a coup when he returns from New Zealand, where he at the moment is at the christening of one of his grandchildren.

I really am very concerned about that and I've been talking with the Prime Minister of Fiji about the possibility of a Pacific foreign ministers' meeting taking place this week. That's not been finalised yet, but it's likely to happen towards the end of the week.

GILLIAN BRADFORD: And also, do you think the coup, though, could happen as early as the end of this week?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: I think the coup could happen within the next two weeks. Which day I think it will happen on, well, perhaps a bit later than the end of this week, but I think a coup is very likely to occur.

GILLIAN BRADFORD: And what do Australia and New Zealand intend to do?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Well, we have ships positioned, pre-positioned so that we'll be able to provide support for Australians in the event that they get into difficulties as a result of the coup.

We're taking a large number of precautions there, but we'll just have to wait and see.

GILLIAN BRADFORD: But you haven't been able to offer the Prime Minister of Fiji any hope that Australia and New Zealand could stop the Commodore's plans?

ALEXANDER DOWNER: No, I think it's going to be very difficult to stop him. I mean we, the New Zealanders as I mentioned earlier, the Americans have been very helpful as well, the British; we've all been doing our best to try to discourage Commodore Bainimarama but he still seems to me to be pretty set on his plans.

PETER CAVE: The Foreign Minister Alexander Downer. He was speaking to Gillian Bradford in Canberra.